


The Affair of the Art (A Game of Hearts pt. 2)

by zmethos



Series: A Game of Hearts [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-27
Updated: 2018-01-27
Packaged: 2019-03-10 06:09:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13496386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zmethos/pseuds/zmethos
Summary: When Sherlock becomes gravely ill, John must unravel the clues to save him.





	The Affair of the Art (A Game of Hearts pt. 2)

**Author's Note:**

> This series was written after the first season of BBC's _Sherlock_ and therefore does not reflect anything that occurs on the show after.
> 
> While John and Sherlock are not yet in a full relationship at this point in this series (A Game of Hearts), I've labelled it M/M because that's the direction it is heading.

THE TEXT MESSAGE read:

_Need you at the flat_

John sighed and held it up for Sarah’s inspection. They were just finishing up a nice meal at her flat (there had been some debate on whether it was a very late lunch or a somewhat early dinner) and had been considering catching a movie.

“Honestly, John, it’s not like you work for him,” remarked Sarah.

“But I do have to live with him,” John replied, “and if I don’t go, he’ll be in a mood for days. He takes being slighted very personally.”

“You not dropping everything for him is a slight,” Sarah said as if trying to be sure she understood.

“In his world view, yes.”

Sarah rolled her eyes but then shrugged. “Well, then I guess you’re lucky that I’m prepared to be more flexible.”

John grabbed his jacket from the back of the sofa and shrugged it on. “Life is good,” he agreed, giving Sarah a quick kiss, the only kind she’d thus allowed. And on the way back to Baker Street, John thought to himself how life _had_ been good lately. Sherlock had been in a fair mood in past weeks, keeping busy, and letting John tag along now and then. A lot of the cases had been simple affairs—well, simple for Sherlock—leaving John enough time to see Sarah regularly. Although John was privately concerned that if something more interesting didn’t happen soon, Sherlock might yet get bored and go into one of his funks.

The door to 221 wasn’t locked, which in itself wasn’t so surprising, since their landlady Mrs. Hudson often left it open when she was home. What did surprise John was the smoke.

The smoke that was clearly coming from upstairs.

Which would be flat B.

The one he shared with Sherlock Holmes.

***

“SHERLOCK?” JOHN CALLED even as he took the stairs two at a time. “Mrs. Hudson?” he thought to call over his shoulder, but he suspected she was out, else she’d have been having a fit that one of Sherlock’s experiments had resulted in—

_For the love of God_ , he thought. He couldn’t have come any faster, but maybe Sherlock had gotten tired of waiting and pressed forward with whatever he’d been working on. As he reached the landing, John ducked his head and threw his arm over his nose and mouth attempting to see through the thickening smoke. He realized, too, that the alarm was shrieking and was amazed he hadn’t noticed it first thing. How could Sherlock stand the noise?

But as John squinted through the smoke, he saw that the flat was, indeed, on fire; the bookcase and sofa were ablaze, along with any amount of the various papers Sherlock kept stacked around. And Sherlock?

John was forced to his hands and knees in an attempt to get under the smoke. If he didn’t find his flatmate soon, he’d need to leave himself. _If I find out he’s been outside all this time . . ._ But then he saw. Sherlock lay on his back on the floor by the fireplace, but his face was turned so that John couldn’t see it. John tried to call his name but couldn’t breathe in enough air, so he crawled over instead. As he got closer, he realized something was wrong—more wrong than an experiment gone awry. The back of Sherlock’s head was bloody. Either something had fallen on him, or . . . Someone had hit him?

_Damn it, damn it, damn it!_ Of course he first needed to get Sherlock out of the burning flat before he could even begin to worry about the injury. Sherlock was a bit too tall for John to pick up and carry, so John would have to drag him.

Being a doctor and having handled his share of bodies—living, dead, unconscious, what-have-you—John shouldn’t have been surprised that his flatmate’s body was much like any other, but he was. Without realizing it, he’d begun to think of Sherlock as something a bit beyond human, but John found Sherlock’s unconscious person to be warm and yielding. _Well, what did you expect?_ he asked himself. _Marble?_ But yeah, he sort of had expected something harder and colder, as if Sherlock would be stubborn even when incapacitated.

But John had little trouble getting hold of Sherlock under his arms and pulling him out onto the landing, where the air was a bit clearer. It was the stairs that posed the problem. John stopped shy of them and set Sherlock down gingerly, keeping the detective’s wounded head in his lap to cushion it. “Sherlock!” he hissed in his flatmate’s ear, and for a terrible second he asked himself whether Sherlock was even breathing. But then he saw the brow furrow slightly, as if John’s voice was worming its way towards Sherlock’s senses, and in what John found to be painfully slow motion, the eyes opened.

“Is my head in your lap?” croaked Sherlock after taking a moment to get his bearings.

“We can talk about it later, if you like. The flat’s on fire. If I help you, can you stand?” 

Sherlock tried to nod but only managed to wince. Not willing to waste any more time, John urged his flatmate to sitting and then helped him up. John maneuvered Sherlock closest to the banister and they had just started down the stairs when the fire brigade showed up. For a moment John worried they would try to carry Sherlock the rest of the way down, but whatever look Sherlock gave the two firefighters when they started toward him clearly decided the men against attempting to help. “It’s upstairs,” was all John said to them, and they raced past.

Mrs. Hudson was just outside, two bags of shopping at her feet, and clearly irate at having the brigade keep her back. She scowled at her tenants as they exited. “What have you done now?” she wanted to know, but almost immediately changed her tune when she saw Sherlock’s head. “My word, Sherlock, that’s a headache and a half you’ve got there.”

Paramedics were headed their way. “Get rid of them, John,” Sherlock murmured, even as he swayed a little on his feet.

“I think you should let them take a look,” John told him.

“You take a look. I don’t want them touching me.”

John sighed and took Sherlock over to a waiting ambulance where he made the detective sit while he spoke to the paramedics. He came back with some swabs for the wound. “It’s not too terrible,” he said after working on it for a bit.

“I could have told you that,” said Sherlock.

“Yes, I’m sure you know all about these things. And I’m just a doctor, after all. Still, you almost certainly have a concussion. We’ll need to get you a scan.”

Sherlock pulled a face that might have been disdain but the effect was marred by the grimace of pain that was added to it. “What happened?” he asked.

“I was going to ask you,” John replied. “You were unconscious when I got there. Did something fall on you?”

There was a pause as Sherlock considered. “I don’t remember.”

“Not uncommon with concussion. It might come back to you later.”

“I judge by that statement that it might not.”

John shrugged. “I’m going to have them take you to the hospital for—”

But Sherlock’s interest had centered on John’s jacket. “What’s that?” he demanded.

John put his arms out and looked down at himself. “What’s what?”

“That.” Sherlock pointed to something sticking out of John’s left jacket pocket.

“I don’t know. Receipt maybe?” But as he pulled it free, John realized it was too big and stiff for that. “Postcard,” he realized.

The image was of a white dog with brown ears, sitting with its head tilted as it stared into an old-fashioned gramophone. John flipped it over to read the back. The top left corner stated that the picture was titled “His Master’s Voice” by Francis James Barraud. Written below in flowing but precise handwriting was:

_The loyal dog comes as commanded._

Frowning, John held it out to his flatmate, who only stared at it for a long moment before letting his eyes graze the crowd of people that had gathered on the street. After coming to the conclusion that Sherlock wasn’t going to take the postcard from his hand, John withdrew it and put it back into his pocket. “Well then,” he said, “I’m going to go help Mrs. Hudson clean things up.”

Indeed, the fire brigade was packing up, one of the men talking intently to Mrs. Hudson. When Sherlock moved as if to stand, John put a hand to his chest to stop him and motioned a lingering paramedic over. “Take him to the hospital for a cranial scan, would you?”

Sherlock scowled. “You wouldn’t.”

“I would, for any patient with a concussion that resulted in loss of consciousness and memory. Besides, I’ll get more done with you out of the way.”

The paramedic had stepped closer but still appeared leery of Sherlock, as if the detective might bite her. Of course, Sherlock was looking at her in a way that suggested he might just.

“Don’t touch my stuff,” Sherlock said, and John assumed his flatmate was talking to him, even as Sherlock kept his eyes trained on the paramedic. She in turn shot a helpless look at John, who said, “Just get in the ambulance, Sherlock. Or do you need someone to lift you?”

With an utterly offended expression that John usually attributed to his sister’s cat, Holmes did as he was told.

***

THERE WAS, AT the end of it, more water damage than smoke damage, but at least the flat was habitable. Soggy on one side, but not condemned. Having been told not to touch any of Sherlock’s things—and most things being Sherlock’s—John sided with caution and more or less stayed away from everything on that side of the room.

His flatmate returned a handful of hours later, still scowling. When John asked, “Well?” he only received a dismissive wave as Sherlock went right to work on the wet books and papers.

“What were you working on, anyway?” asked John. He didn’t get an answer to that, either.

“Well, what about the postcard?” John persisted.

Now Sherlock heaved a sigh and slammed a couple large tomes to the carpet. “Fetch a hair dryer, would you?”

“Hair dryer? I don’t have—oh, but you must. Where is it?”

“What makes you think I have one? Go ask Mrs. Hudson.”

John was prepared to ask how it was Sherlock didn’t have a hair dryer but was interrupted by Mrs. Hudson appearing in the doorway. “Ask me what?”

“For a hair dryer,” said Sherlock.

Mrs. Hudson took in what he was doing and nodded in understanding. “I’ll go and get it. Your head all right, Sherlock?”

“Fine,” he murmured.

“I’ll brew you up something if it’ll help,” Mrs. Hudson went on.

“Just the dryer, please, Mrs. Hudson.”

“She’s taking the whole thing rather well,” John remarked after the landlady had retreated.

“We’re probably the most fun she’s had in years,” observed Sherlock as he continued to lay out sodden pieces of paper.

“Nice to see a blow to the head hasn’t dented your ego any,” said John. “The scans were okay, I trust?”

Sherlock made a sound that John interpreted as _humph_.

“No bleeding on the brain or anything?”

Mrs. Hudson reappeared with the dryer. “Here you are. Don’t use the outlets on that wall,” she added, pointing to the water-stained wallpaper behind the sofa and bookcase.

“Did they determine the cause of the fire?” John asked her.

Mrs. Hudson shook her head. “Not electrical, in any case.” Her eyes slid to Sherlock’s back.

“He doesn’t remember—” John began, but was cut short by the hair dryer roaring to life. He gave Mrs. Hudson an apologetic shrug and she departed, muttering things he was sure it was just as well he was unable to hear.

***

JOHN AWOKE TO the sound of voices and glanced at the clock; it was nigh on two in the morning. Sherlock had been out when John had come home from Sarah’s, and John had been almost disappointed to think his flatmate might be out on a case without having called—texted, really—for help. The night had dragged on, and somewhere between worried and irritated, John had finally gone to bed a little after midnight. But now it seemed as if Sherlock had returned, and from the low murmur of voices, he wasn’t alone.

John sat up. Maybe it was Lestrade, and they were discussing a case. Or perhaps it was a client, though it seemed very late (or early, depending) to be meeting with one. Not that Sherlock kept typical hours. Just as John was getting ready to venture out, however, the voices moved farther away and became more muffled.

It took John a moment to realize that Sherlock had taken whomever he had with him into his bedroom.

For a long moment John simply sat there as he tried to absorb this information. He and Sherlock had not been flatmates for a particularly long time, so even though Sherlock had not brought anyone home before didn’t mean . . . But no. Why was he even thinking about it? _What does it matter?_ John asked himself as he lay down again. _It’s none of my business anyway._

Still, maybe he should go out and get a drink of water. Yes, he was suddenly very thirsty. And it was his flat, too. No reason at all he shouldn’t be able to go get himself some water. He sat up again and threw back the covers, then hesitated, striving to hear. Both voices were low. A man, then? Or maybe a woman with a husky sort of voice . . .

_No, no, no._ John slid on his slippers. This was about getting a glass of water. It was not about his curiosity regarding Sherlock’s personal life. Did Sherlock have a personal life? Aside from an older brother he disliked? And an occasional one-nighter, assuming that’s what this was?

John shook his head in an attempt to clear it. Water, that’s what he needed. But even as he stood, he heard the sound of the door to the flat closing softly. He paused, but there was no other sound.

Maybe he wasn’t thirsty after all.

No, suddenly he was just really, really tired.

He kicked off his slippers and went back to bed. Though it was a long time before he stopped straining his ears and fell asleep.

***

SHERLOCK WAS RUSHING around the flat when John finally crawled out of bed the next morning. “Shoes, shoes,” he was muttering, his shirt only half buttoned, his hair even more messy than usual.

“What’s going on?” asked John.

“Ah! Shoes!” And indeed there were shoes, two of them, separated by a couple meters or more of flooring.

“Get undressed in a bit of a hurry last night?” John asked him.

Sherlock stopped in the middle of the room, eyes darting, then all at once swooped down on a piece of paper on a table.

“Because I thought maybe I heard voices . . .”

“Fencing exhibition,” Sherlock said, holding up the paper.

“What, last night?”

“Today.” Sherlock was already headed for the door.

“Button up, would you?” John called after him. “Going out looking like . . .” His voice trailed as he noticed something on the landing. Had Sherlock dropped it? John picked it up and saw it was an advert for the exhibition, or at least it seemed to be, although there was no information printed on the front, only a black-and-white illustration of what appeared to be the aftermath of a swordfight. Underneath the picture was written:

_Good night, sweet prince_

John wracked his brain for a moment. The line was famous, wasn’t it? He’d learned it in school; it was Shakespeare, he thought.

“Hamlet,” said Mrs. Hudson, giving John a start; he hadn’t heard her walk up.

John frowned at the picture. “Remind me how that one ends.”

“Just like the picture there,” she told him. “Hamlet dies of a poisoned sword. But then so does—”

But John was already taking the stairs two at a time, leaving a confounded landlady in his wake.

***

IT TOOK AN unfortunate amount of time to figure out where the fencing exhibition was taking place. London was, after all, rather large, and John had not managed to gather any information from the advert Sherlock had flashed at him, nor did the picture he’d found have anything helpful to offer. He was considering checking with a visitor centre when he spotted some posted bills naming Earls Court as the venue.

There were enough people that for a moment John worried he might not find his flatmate in the crowd. But his concern was unfounded, he realized, the moment he glanced up at the raised platform where two men were fencing—one of them being Sherlock.

“Oh, for God’s sake,” John hissed. “He’s not even wearing a kit.”

“He never does except in tournament,” said a voice behind him. “And then only because they insist.”

John turned. “Mycroft?”

“I wouldn’t worry overmuch about it,” Sherlock’s older brother went on, “he has any number of trophies, and épée is his specialty.”

“You’re proud of him,” remarked John.

“On occasion.”

John took a deep breath. “I think someone—” He was interrupted by a collective gasp from the crowd.

“The tip on that épée has no stopping point,” Mycroft said with a frown. “Hardly sporting.”

John saw where Sherlock’s opponent had managed a touch with the sharp point of his blade. A small welt of blood was now coloring the upper arm of Sherlock’s shirt, though Sherlock didn’t seem to have noticed.

John pushed through people to get closer to the platform. “Sherlock!” he called. “Sherlock, I think—”

Sherlock turned, his expression a mask of irritation at the distraction, even as Mycroft grabbed John’s arm and growled, “Don’t!”

Sherlock’s opponent—someone small and quick, concealed by the protective fencing gear—moved in for another touch, this one square in the chest. Sherlock rewarded him with a roll of his eyes, even as he tossed down his own weapon and stepped to the edge of the platform. “Honestly, John, what—”

It was as far as he got before collapsing.

***

FOR THE SECOND time in as many weeks, John found himself cradling the head of his unconscious flatmate. Paramedics that had been on standby for the exhibition pushed through the crowd, one of them coming to kneel next to John. “What happened?” he asked.

“The sword,” John told him. “I think the sword had something on it.”

The paramedic looked over his shoulder at the now deserted platform; even Sherlock’s épée had been removed. “You sure?” he asked.

“Pretty sure.”

“Then I have to call the police, you realize, to meet us at the hospital.”

John nodded and started to look for Mycroft, but Sherlock’s brother had made himself scarce. _I never will understand the way those two work_ , John thought. Well, he couldn’t make sense of one Holmes, what hope did he have of figuring out two of them?

In the ambulance, John obsessively ran through a checklist of symptoms. Rapid breathing, chills, low blood pressure . . . Some form of sepsis, he decided. The épée must have had a pathogen on it. Sherlock would need intravenous fluids, maybe even dialysis to cleanse his blood of whatever had infected it.

But when they arrived at the hospital, there was very little John could do but wait. “He’s on antibiotics and an IV,” a nurse assured him at one point. Later another told him that, no, Sherlock had not yet regained consciousness.

Some long time later, a doctor came and told John they were moving Sherlock up to a private room.

“He’s awake?” Watson asked.

The doctor shook his head. “We’ve got him stabilized, and now we’re waiting for test results. You’re welcome to go up to the room,” he added. “I think there are some police inspectors waiting to ask some questions. Might be better to do that in private.”

“Right,” said John, pinching the bridge of his nose as he felt a headache begin to come on.

“So he’s left it all to you,” Mycroft said without preamble when John entered room 402. The elder Holmes brother had already taken up residence in one of the two guest chairs, and the way his arms were folded across his chest did not bode well.

“Sorry?”

Mycroft spread his hands. “His estate.”

John pictured the perpetual mess that was their flat. “What estate?”

Mycroft’s frown only deepened. “How much do you know?”

“Not enough, evidently.” He looked to the still, pale figure in the hospital bed and resisted the urge to go over and check again, to look at the chart and take a pulse.  
But Mycroft was rising, preparing to leave.

“That’s it?” John asked him.

“The solicitor will fill you in, I’m sure,” Mycroft told him. He exited only seconds before Lestrade entered, just as John was settling into the chair Mycroft hadn’t used.

“How is he?” Lestrade asked, and John shook his head.

“Not like I’m the doctor here,” John replied, unable to keep a bitter note from his voice.

“But you are a doctor,” said Lestrade. “You must have an opinion.”

John only shrugged. “He’s stable. Until the tests come back . . .”

Lestrade took in the creases on John’s forehead and around his eyes. “You’re worried, though.”

“Yeah. A little.”

Lestrade eased into the vacant chair. “The fire last week, and now this. What’s going on?”

John’s mind flicked to the postcard, the _Hamlet_ illustration. He knew he should mention these things, but Sherlock’s disinterest in the postcard made John question whether it was important.

“What about that Moriarty fellow?” Lestrade asked.

That had also crossed John’s mind. But if it were Moriarty, surely Sherlock would have said something, done something? “Maybe,” he said. “The truth is, I don’t know much. I don’t know what Sherlock was working on when the fire broke out, I don’t know who he was sparring with at the exhibition today . . .” _I don’t know who he had in his room last night or where these pictures are coming from._ John felt the weight of frustration fall onto his shoulders like a mantle and blinked rapidly against the sudden prick of tears. He was terrible at this. Sherlock was the one who knew how to put all the pieces together; what was John supposed to do without him?

There was a long silence. “Sorry,” John finally said, “I’m not much use, am I?”

Lestrade stood. “You’ve had a bit of a shock. But when you get a chance to think about it . . . We’re talking to witnesses from the exhibition in the meantime.”

John started to nod but turned toward the opening door halfway through. A short, hefty, balding man in a suit came bustling in. “Ah, there you are,” he said too loudly for a hospital room.

“You’re the solicitor,” John surmised.

“Solicitor?” Lestrade asked.

The man chuckled. “Cat’s out, eh? David Benson, at your service. Now—” He opened a battered briefcase. “Mr. Holmes has left you in charge of his care and estate during his incapacitation. You are John Watson? Yes, thought so, saw the picture,” he went on without waiting for an answer. “Should Mr. Holmes, er, expire—”

The color drained from John’s face.

“—the estate remains in your care. Mr. Holmes has requested cremation. But hopefully it won’t come to that.” Benson flashed a smile and shoved a sheaf of papers at John. “I’ll show you where to sign and then we’ll talk to the hospital about—”

John drew back as if the papers might burn him.

“—getting you practicing rights so that you may tend to Mr. Holmes as requested.” Benson dropped the papers onto John’s lap and thrust a pen at him. “Sign at the X’s, if you please.”

John only stared.

“I thought he had a brother,” said Lestrade.

“He does,” John answered faintly.

“Mr. Holmes did not trust his brother to act in his best interest under the circumstances,” Benson informed them briskly.

Lestrade continued to eye John thoughtfully. “They don’t get on,” John explained.

“Come now,” said Benson, waggling the pen, “just sign and we’ll move things along here. That one on top gives you the right to act as his doctor and make medical decisions on his behalf. Simple enough, eh?”

Hesitantly, John took the pen.

“In the event that you are unable to provide the care required, you are permitted to choose which medical professionals will have access to his person,” Benson went on. “The next one there acknowledges your receipt of Mr. Holmes’s assets. In general you promise not to destroy any of his research, though you are compelled to abolish all his personal affects should her, er, pass.”

“And if I don’t? What will he do, haunt me?” But John signed anyway.

“Indeed,” said the solicitor, and John wasn’t entirely sure whether he was joking.

“I’ll leave you to it, then,” said Lestrade, turning to go, but he stopped at the door with a troubled look. “Seems a bit like having the fox guard the hens to me. He must trust you quite a bit.”

“Yes, well . . .” But John was only slightly more enlightened. “He only trusts me more than he does his brother, really. There isn’t anyone else. That I know of,” he added. Suddenly his shoulders felt heavy; he could sense himself slumping.

Lestrade gave a curt nod and left, his face still etched with unease.

“You have the right to deny access to anyone you suspect may be a threat to Mr. Holmes’s wellbeing, including his brother and associates.”

John tossed a glance toward the man in the bed. “Threat? Really? Bit melodramatic, don’t you think?”

“Just covering all the bases,” Benson declared roundly. He collected the papers and his pen and tossed them back into his briefcase. “Let’s get you caught up with whatever doctor has been caring for him thus far, shall we?”

John stared for a moment at Sherlock’s inert figure. Not minutes ago he’d been fighting the desire to act as doctor, but now he wasn’t sure he wanted the responsibility.

Benson’s voice was softer when he next spoke. “Can’t let him down now.” John’s gaze moved to the solicitor’s grave face. “He saw it coming, you know. Pulled me out of bed at one in the morning to set all this straight.”

“It was you last night?” John wasn’t sure if he was disappointed or relieved.

“This morning, technically. But he’s done me a good turn now and again. Nice enough lad. A little strange, but . . .” Benson gave a small shrug. “Who isn’t, eh?”

“Right,” said John, rising. “Let’s get on with it then.”

***

THE CULTURES WOULD need 72 hours, though even after 24 or 48 they might know something. In the meantime, it was mostly a waiting game. Antibiotics and fluids and a close watch to make sure there were no signs of spreading infection or organ failure.

Of course, it would all be much more bearable if Sherlock would only wake up. John was prepared to deal with the petulant grousing, but the silence and stillness were decidedly unnerving.

The last light of day was almost gone from the sky when John’s phone chimed. He’d been half asleep in the chair, but he checked the text message anyway. It was from Sarah:

_Thought we were on for this evening?_

John groaned; he was in it now. Sarah often gave him grief for being at Sherlock’s beck and call. How would she take knowing he’d become the detective’s primary physician, practically tied to his hospital bed?

_Sorry. At hospital with S._

It seemed like a lifetime before the reply came.

_What happened?_

_SIRS_

_Him or you?_

_Him. Long story._

_I’m coming over._

John sent her the room number and dozed off again only to be awakened less than an hour later by Sarah’s arrival. “What—?” she began but broke off abruptly when she saw Sherlock. “He’s asleep?” she whispered.

John shook his head. “Hasn’t woken up.”

“Oh.” Sarah took in John’s miserable countenance. “I’m sorry, John. Really.”

“And do you know, he knew it was going to happen?” John asked her.

“What?”

“He had his solicitor in and—and—I don’t even want any of his stuff! I’d probably inadvertently kill myself with one of those ludicrous experiments of his! I mean—”

“John . . .”

“—and there are all these rules about what I can and can’t keep, and—”

“John.”

“—maybe I shouldn’t have distracted him, but he’d already been hit, so—”

“John!”

John froze.

“You’re upset, which is . . . understandable, I suppose,” Sarah said gently. “But I have no idea what you’re talking about or where this is coming from exactly. His condition is . . . ?”

“Stable,” said John with a sigh. “So far no sign of organ failure.”

“That’s good. Now tell me what happened.”

John hesitated. He hadn’t told Lestrade about the postcard and the _Hamlet_ picture; should he tell Sarah? No, he decided. Although he couldn’t think of a reason for the police to question her, he didn’t want to be caught in a lie of omission if they did. Better not to mention it.

“Let’s go eat,” he said.

Sarah glanced at the bed. “Sure he can spare you?”

John’s answering smile was thin. “They have my cell number if they need it. At any rate, I need a break.” He took her arm and moved her to the door. “There’s a hole-in-the-wall Italian place around the corner, practically in the alley. Not much to look at, but the food is decent. Sherlock,” and John was surprised by the lump that formed in his throat when he said the name, “is a friend of the owner’s son . . . Well, as much as he’s anyone’s friend, but . . . It’s kind of a long story . . .”

Sarah just kept nodding. She’d learned that with John Watson it was a lot of work to talk around the subject of his flatmate. There were times when she would have argued, put a stop to the discussion, redirected the conversation. But just for that night, she decided, it would be well enough to let John get out whatever was building up inside him. If he could come to some conclusions on his own, maybe things would become as clear to him as they appeared to her.

***

BY THE TIME he returned to the hospital, John was exhausted. Sarah had prolonged dinner then insisted he go back to the flat to shower and change—something about not wanting to smell like garlic, but John was smart enough to know she was trying to extend his time away. He knew what she thought; she’d made it clear in any number of ways. But he was a soldier as well as a doctor, and he knew what it meant to be loyal, even under adverse circumstances.

His reasons for being loyal to Sherlock, on the other hand, well, he hadn’t entirely figured those out yet.

Room 402 smelled overwhelmingly of perfume when John entered, and he immediately looked for the woman he supposed must be wearing it, but the room was empty of visitors. Instead John found a large bouquet of flowers on the table next to the bed. It was at least five times the size of a typical arrangement, and it was lovely, but the smell was overpowering. _God, who sent this?_ John wondered, snatching at the card that was stuck at the center.

But it wasn’t a card exactly. It was a small reproduction of a painting by the looks of it. It showed a woman asleep on a bed, her long, dark hair tangled in a rose bush. A man stood beside her, half stooped as if leaning in.

Sleeping Beauty, of course.

John frowned at the card, flipped it over, but found no other clues. No writing this time, just the picture. “Right,” he said, “so now what?”

He sat down and stared at the card, thinking through what he could remember of the story. He knew the princess fell asleep . . . Spell of some sort . . . Needed a prince to wake her . . . Or was that Snow White?

He decided to call Sarah. “Do you know the story of Sleeping Beauty?” he asked when she picked up the phone.

After a long pause, Sarah replied groggily, “John, where are you?”

“Hospital. Someone left flowers and a picture. I think it’s Sleeping Beauty.”

There was a huff of impatience. “Well who are they from?”

_Moriarty_ , thought John, but only said, “Doesn’t say.”

Sounding more awake now, Sarah said, “You think they’re from whoever’s been doing all this?”

“Maybe. Damn, I should have been here.”

“You can’t be there all the time, John. No one on the staff saw who brought them?”

John looked at the massive flower arrangement. “I don’t know how they could have missed it, actually.”

“Then you should ask.”

“I will,” John told her, “but I’m trying to remember the story of Sleeping Beauty. Do you know it?”

“Yeah, of course. Princess is cursed by a bad fairy to prick her finger on a spindle and die on her sixteenth birthday. Only a good fairy changes the curse so that the princess falls into a deep sleep. There are a few different versions, but the end is that a prince comes and wakes her with a kiss. Typical fairy tale stuff. Do you think it’s important somehow?”

“Might be.”

“John,” Sarah said after a moment.

“Mm?”

“You’re not going to . . .?”

“What?”

“Never mind. I’m going back to bed now.”

“All right. Good night.” But John’s mind was already elsewhere. He went out to the nurses’ station to ask about the flowers, but no one could remember seeing them delivered. Well, and a bouquet that size could easily have hidden the person who brought them anyway, John figured.

It seemed more and more to John that this was exactly the kind of game Moriarty would play. Except he hadn’t seen Moriarty at all, which was unusual. Moriarty liked to be seen, and he liked to be able to watch, too . . . 

All at once John felt exposed. He went back to room 402 and locked the door, then stood there a moment while he considered. “Cameras?” he asked himself. He checked the flowers, the telly hanging on the wall, the undersides of the furniture. Nothing.

He turned his eyes to the large window. There were no blinds but there was a shade for when the sun came in that side of the room, rather like the ones people used on car windows if they had children in the back seat. He lowered it. It didn’t block everything, but it would have to do.

Feeling somewhat more secure, John directed his attention to his patient. It was clear one of the nurses had replaced the IV bag while John and Sarah were at dinner. The chart was updated, too. The sum total of the information was that there had been no significant changes.

John felt Sherlock’s forehead and took a pulse, just to feel like he was doing something useful. The skin was cool and slightly clammy, and something snapped into place in John’s brain.

Body heat.

John’s memory flashed to a few months prior, when Moriarty had last imposed himself on them. John had been forced to stand nose-to-nose with Sherlock and say . . . Well, that didn’t matter. What he suddenly and vividly remembered now was the warmth, not in an emotional sense, but of two physical bodies positioned close together.

This was the key; he was suddenly sure of it.

In the fairy tale, the prince kissed Sleeping Beauty. But what if it were the warmth the kiss conveyed that broke the spell?

“I don’t have to kiss you,” John said aloud to the unresponsive figure in the bed, “I just have to warm you up a bit.”

Moving with real purpose now, John retrieved a Ready-Heat blanket from supplies and set to work. It was the longest fifteen minutes he could imagine, but once the blanket was heated, he began to see he’d been right. Sherlock’s color returned. His pulse went from sluggish to normal. And as Sherlock’s breathing started to come easier, John’s did too.

The eyes opened.

John waited, but Sherlock didn’t move, didn’t speak. He stared at the ceiling for what seemed like ages. John finally lifted his own gaze in case there was, in fact, something on the ceiling worth staring at. Until at last, just as John was about to break the silence, Sherlock said, “John?”

“Yes?”

“Take me home.”

***

THERE WERE ANY number of valid medical reasons for not releasing Sherlock from the hospital and at least one good reason to do so—Sherlock, when awake, was the world’s worst patient.

“I’m fine,” Sherlock continually insisted.

“We don’t know that. The test results—”

“Will come back inconclusive. What am I wearing?”

“A hospital gown.”

Sherlock looked at John as if the doctor had stepped in something nasty and tracked it into their flat. “You let them do this?”

For which John had no answer, except to say, “I’ll bring you something to change into. Lestrade took your others for evidence.”

“Bring me something to eat while you’re at it.”

“I liked it better when you weren’t talking,” John decided.

“No you didn’t.”

At which point John determined he could always readmit Sherlock if necessary, but that he absolutely needed to get him out of the hospital in the meantime, else he might be tempted to poison Sherlock himself. “I’ll go by the flat, get your clothes, then come back and sign the release papers. Yes?”

Sherlock only sighed and picked up the remote for the telly. “Don’t take too long.”

***

“SO IT’S BEEN Moriarty all along,” said John as they rode home in the cab.

Sherlock continued to gaze out the window. “Moriarty?”

“The postcard, and the _Hamlet_ picture, and the Sleeping Beauty bit. What’s he up to?”

“He’s not up to anything. Why did you bring those?”

John had the vase of flowers by his feet. “Evidence? They’re nice anyway.”

“They make my eyes water,” said Sherlock.

“But maybe they mean something,” John persisted. “Flowers have meanings, right?”

Sherlock sighed. “Alstroemeria,” he said, jabbing a finger at one flower, “symbolizes friendship. Carnations,” another jab, “show devotion. The daisies and peonies are for unspoken affection, and the hyacinth’s meaning is derived from mythology and is generally taken to denote constancy or sincerity.”

“Well,” said John, “I know who to go to next time I need to say it with flowers.” He let his thoughts roam for a moment before asking, “You suppose Lestrade has come up with anything?”

“Not likely.” Sherlock was exiting the cab almost before it had fully stopped, leaving John to gather the flowers and pay the fare.

“What will you tell him then?” John called up the stairs as he entered the building, only to run almost headlong into Mrs. Hudson. “Oh, Mrs. Hudson, here, these are for you,” he added, handing off the overflowing vase of blooms.

“There’s nothing to tell,” Sherlock called back.

“Is he all right then?” Mrs. Hudson asked John.

“Is he ever?” John replied before heading up the stairs himself. Sherlock was already seated at his computer, going through his e-mail. “Are you going to fill me in on what’s going on?” John wanted to know.

“Mycroft.”

“Mycroft,” John repeated. “What about him?”

“You can ask him yourself in a moment.”

Even as Sherlock said it, the footsteps sounded on the landing.

“Satisfied?” Sherlock asked without turning.

John answered, “No,” just as Mycroft responded, “What do you think?”

“Mycroft’s department has been working on some new . . . What are they, Mycroft? Bioweapons?”

Mycroft only grunted.

“And he needed someone to test them on. Meanwhile, he’s been unhappy with me because I’ve refused to answer some questions he has. That are none of his business, I might add,” said Sherlock. He began typing a reply to an e-mail.

“Seems like a bit of trouble just for that,” said John, casting an uncertain look at the older Holmes.

“Yes, but Mycroft works in intelligence; he can’t stand thinking there’s something he doesn’t know.”

“I thought maybe if we did it as a game, it might be more to your liking,” Mycroft put in. “Though leaving everything to the doctor here was quite a gamble. You’ll have that rescinded, I suppose.”

“No, I don’t think so,” said Sherlock.

Mycroft stared hard at the back of his brother’s head. “I always said it was wrong of father to leave you two-thirds.”

“He knew you wouldn’t take care of me, so he made me able to take care of myself. Hmm, that one sounds interesting,” he murmured.

“I’ve offered you plenty of work!” Mycroft growled.

Sherlock finally turned around. “Yes, well, but I have enough of my own, as you can see.” He gestured toward the long column of e-mails on the computer screen.

Feeling as if he were witnessing something he shouldn’t, John had begun to move backwards in small steps in preparation for a quiet exit. But Sherlock said, “Stay there, John.”

“Yes, by all means,” Mycroft added dryly, “you’re practically family, aren’t you? Sherlock’s next of kin?”

John scrambled mentally for an answer. “Uh . . .”

“Leave him alone, Mycroft,” said Sherlock, going back to his e-mail. “You’ll want to be running along before Lestrade shows up and starts asking questions anyway. Wouldn’t want him investigating your assistant as my fencing opponent, would we?”

Mycroft looked from his brother to John and back again. “Yes, well,” he finally said, then took his leave.

John stared at Sherlock’s back, his flatmate evidently completely engrossed in something he was reading. “Don’t you ever use me like that again, Sherlock.”

Sherlock looked up, blinking. “What?”

“I am not a pawn in some spat you’re having with your brother. I was honestly worried about you, and what’s more, if I hadn’t figured out the stupid pictures, you might still be in the hospital. Or worse.”

“They were easy,” said Sherlock dismissively. “I knew you’d figure them out.”

“Figure what out?” asked Lestrade as he entered. “Sorry,” he added, “the landlady said to go on up. Did you figure something out?”

“Not particularly,” Sherlock told him. “But I can assure you there’s no cause for further alarm.”

Lestrade looked to John, who was still glowering. “Everything all right then?”

“That’s up to him, isn’t it?”

Sherlock raised his eyebrows. “I think we’ve had a misunderstanding. In any event, Inspector, I would say that, yes, everything is all right. Unless John feels differently.”

John headed for the door. “I’m going out. Don’t set fire to anything.”

Lestrade waited a moment after the door slammed shut to ask, “Did I interrupt something?”

“He didn’t like the flowers I sent him.”

“Beg pardon?”

“It’s nothing,” Sherlock told him. “He’ll get over it. He always does.”

“Huh. Until the day he doesn’t,” said Lestrade. “That’s how things ended with my first wife.”

But Sherlock had already turned his attention back to his computer. “Good day, Inspector.”

“Right.” Lestrade went to the door. Paused. “Not that it matters,” he said, “but all of us down at the bureau, we rather like him. Makes you a bit easier to deal with.” And with that, he was gone.

If the statement made any impact on Sherlock, he neglected to show it.


End file.
